hearts mended
by incense-whiskers
Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar.../snippets of a young woman's life/it must be terrible to be that scared of the world
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

_So a rogue walks into a bar -_

nobody ever asks for the rest of the story because

1, rogues are _bad _and

2, the only stories that matter are the ones that are _good_.

...but you look to be an educated sort, so maybe you've guessed better.

* * *

They've been travelling for six days and they're low on food. Her sister has circles under her eyes that she could trip over. Frost has started to creep over the ground, and although the cruel smell of burning flesh and charred stone still lingers in the woods, the sickly smell of plague through the fields – they can all see their breath in the morning when they slip through the underbrush.

So it sort of explains why she's lying there on the ground with a man who's old enough to be her father on top with his pants around his knees. It must be a pretty spectacular thing for a man, she thinks to herself as he thrusts to be able to enjoy sex when the world is ending. After a few minutes he groans and shudders, falters.

It makes it easier to slide her small blade against his throat.

*/

Gimli says nothing to her when she returns to their small camp, only helps her wash the smell off her skin, scrub the blood off her clothes. His hands are heavy around her neck, warm and comforting around her hips. The surge of _light _around her middle is hot and bright and even if she closes her eyes the shine is still there.

Hayley giggles at her spoils: a couple of blankets, clothes that can be resized with a couple of stitches, bandages, water and dried food (beef jerky, apple rings, hazelnuts).

Ellen sits next to her and drapes the blanket around her and listens to the account of her day as Gimli stirs the fire.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

She'd been the one to put the knife to her mother – her father couldn't bear to do it in his frozen horror, and Hayley had been screaming as their mother had started shuffling towards her baby with a gaping, macabre smile. Emma Bramley was a good woman, maybe not the friendliest as she was a true homebody, but a firm woman who helped her neighbours and made a damn good pie and while she might have not approved of her lessons with the local alchemist, or her studies, she'd always packed her a small lunch and had Gimli walk her every morning.

Emma Bramley, like so many others, did not deserve this.

With her mother preoccupied on wanting to eat her sister, she'd grabbed the old cast iron skillet and brought it down over her mother's head.

_Gimli had said she was paranoid, but her immolation elixir was easy to make and it let her sleep easy at night._


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Quarantine _sucks._

The ground was nothing but mud and the air was damp and chilly. Outside their little tent, the soldiers had erected rough log walls and the steady tromp of their plate boots and the iron hooves of the horses was enough to make her sick. The other refugees smelled of sweat and fear, huddled together in groups and looking around with shell-shocked eyes.

In the morning, when the sun was rising, Gimli held back her hair as she vomited at the smell of fresh bread and mulled cider. _(it smelled like morning at home and oh light,-)_

In the afternoon when the priests came and checked for plague and other diseases, she held his hand as he trembled in fear. _(if they caught even a trace of the plague, you were executed)_

In the dark of night, she wrapped her legs around him as he moved in her and they whispered:

_We made it._

_We made it._

_We made it._


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

"You're an idiot."

Gimli raises his head, winces and drops it.

"You aren't supposed to be in here."

"C'mon, push over."

"Is that blood – are you covered in blood, where have you been?"

"Are you concerned, or resigned?"

"Bit of both."

"Here, I brought you your pipe."

"The priests will kill you."

"Do you want a smoke or not?"

The bed shuffles as pillows get rearranged. Propped up better he lights the worn clay pipe and inhales. The candle flickers over her skin and her smile is knife-like in the shadows.

"Act surprised in the morning. You're being reassigned."

The dwarf glowers and she smiles.

"A good general doesn't think of his men as collateral damage."

"I don't need to be babysat."

"I was in the area anyway."

_An alarm goes off in the distance – _

"That's my cue."


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing. _

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

The orc finally, finally falls.

Ellen sits down and shakes her left wrist gingerly, panting. Gimli sets his shield down and takes it carefully in his hands to check for a break. Behind them, a young warrior is shrieking at a gnome mage who is preoccupying herself with drinking from her water flask and ignoring him. A hunter drops down beside her, quiver rattling.

"Do you care about who gets more trees?" he asks as he tends to his wolf.

"Careful lad, they'll hear you." Gimli nods his head towards a purple-skinned, long eared scout in a Sentinel tabard who jogs up the path. The young man makes a face.

"It'd a much better day if I didn't have to come back out here tomorrow." She sighs.

"It beats the alternative." The dwarf mutters, dropping her wrist. The hunter looks up, curious.

"There's an alternative?" he asks.

"Yeah," the rogue replies. "Starving."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

The drunk outside her window is stumbling along the street and singing about his list of favorite things.

And it kind of gets her thinking.

She loves a glass of Dalaran red.

She loves the thrill of a new face.

She loves tending to her small window box of posies and silverleaf.

She loves how the leather of her gear makes her ass look.

She loves the look on Gimli's face when he comes, the shuddering elation that echoes through his bones.

She loves the fact that you just told her exactly what she wanted to know, sucker.


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

It's the night before the wedding –

Really, she shouldn't be here.

But.

Her fingers trail and curl around the curve of his skull, his hands spanning the width of her thighs. Gimli shifts a little and warm fingers curl inside and her back _arcs up up up_, he makes a throaty groan and chuckles as she quakes. His beard drags across her breasts, up against her throat and his kiss tastes like salt and earth and she links her hands in his and she flips –

He groans low and her head rolls back as his hand slip to her hips.

_Pleasepleaseplease_ she murmurs as she rocks.

_Nether –_ he swears as his eyes cross.

(she loves him, a wife doesn't change anything)


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

The young girl visibly wilts:

The noble continues to whine, her voice gaining more and more volume as her tirade continues. The woman's face is powdery, eyes rimmed with too much liner and her robe plunges too far to be attractive.

Ellen slips past her and paints a smile on her lips.

"They look lovely," she says with a smile. "I'll take two."

"There aren't any blue blossoms." The salesgirl says timidly. Ellen laughs.

"Every herbalist worth their salt knows that those flowers won't bloom for another three months yet."

The girl smiles shyly and the fat noble behind her sputters in outrage as the audience giggles. The girl hands her the bouquets and stretches out her hand to return the tip.

"Keep it." The rogue says and strolls away. Out of the corner of her eye, a druid makes a purchase and tucks a blossom behind his priestess's ear. A warrior steps up with a smile. The noblewoman is a lovely shade of puce.

(Old Ellen doesn't realize the gift until she hauls the water bucket up the stairs to her apartment and stares in bewilderment at the gift.)

(While Vera's away, Ellen slips into their apartment and leaves the flowers in a vase. It should ease the tension with Gimli's new assignment in Outlands.)


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

"Oh Nether," she stumbles. "I hate portals." Gimli looks at her with a smile.

"Always have." He says fondly. Slipping into the old tongue she curses his dwarvish constitution. He grins. Beside them, the draenei couple they'd hooked up with look on in curiosity.

"I suppose we ought to get to work." She says as she checks her hip for her knife.

"Let's get to it then." He agrees.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

They're sitting around a campfire, Gimli fussing over her bandaged arm.

Pilar and Xavin are whispering to each other over cups of sweet tea. Xavin reaches out and tugs on his wife's cloak further down her shoulder to ward off the chill and she smiles brilliantly up at him. Today they managed to rescue a gaggle of druids from the depths of Zangarmarsh and everybody's riding on a bit of an adrenalin high.

At night, Ellen and Gimli share bedrolls and they talk in the old tongue, in dwarvish –

Under the expanse of the universe she feels so small, and Gimli is warm against her back.

She worries about Vera though and counts the day when she has to give him back.

(Vera is good for him, they attend services together and drink terrible dwarvish whiskey and are both respected in the Argent Dawn. Ellen knows how he takes his tea, what kind of socks he likes and how to talk him down when his temper flares.)

(Vera also keeps him safe away from secrets and knives and the thought makes her stomach curdle.)


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Lower City is where Ellen goes to hide when Vera comes to visit.

There she can disappear between the bird men and the strange nether-pirates, drink with a tauren warrior and an orc shaman and play a game of cards with a pair of visiting Sentinels. At night she slips into the apartment that Pilar and Xavin have enthusiastically renovated and sleeps on the too-short couch.

Vera hates her, hates that she has a history, and present. Hates that Ellen will not apologize for the inside jokes, the lunch dates and the laughter, the drinks at the bar when the night terrors strike, for still having him even though she shouldn't.

What Vera hates most of all is that Ellen is selfish and Gimli knows exactly what she's doing. Ellen would rather die screaming than let anything happen to him. Ellen doesn't believe in anything so she tries to force this goodness she thinks he deserves. _(in the end, he knows – for he has faith – that this will sort itself out)_

Rogues aren't nice people, paladins are.

Warriors though, are anyone's guess.


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing. Apologies, this particular chapter is a sort of foreshadowing, mostly filler._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Everybody meets anybody in a goblin port.

The first meeting, the one that nobody ever truly remembers, was in Ratchet. It was a hot day and the smell of the sea was thick against the wavering desert scenery. The warlock walked into a block party (a tauren was trying to butter up a night elf in this particular event and neither will ever admit to how far the young brave actually got) with a ripped robe and a foul temper to her travelling companion who looked considerably less worse for wear. As they walked into the party and tripped over the yet-to-be-hemmed robes of a gnome mage they noticed a human woman in a purple skirt and flushed cheeks -

and then an orc forced a mug of ale into their hands and wandered off, still arguing with a dwarf.

The second time they meet – which is recorded for all posterity – is in Northrend and the two members of the Horde are devoted in their new faith, namely, his fire elemental, when the rogue stumbles upon their camp and warms her hands next to the elemental's fire and proceeds to cheerily inform them to avoid the blue dragons because they want to kill the mages and yes, she's a warlock, but they might take her anyway just for funsies.

Oh, and watch for the giant undead spiders. Their city is about eight miles east.

Thanks for the fire, keep warm! The rogue pulls the muffler up to her eyebrows and vanishes back into the snow.

_(alliance, the troll says slowly and shakes his head, they're all crazy)_


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

When they finally dock – _and sweet Twisting Nether, dry land_ – Gimli is not there.

Ellen smiles through the hurt and instantly takes a new assignment.

In four hours, she's reporting at the palace and still smelling of sea water.

* * *

"I wish it were that simple," she says quietly and toes the mangled cow. "But it's not."

"I hate this. I can't do anything!"

"Your value is in your name. People will rally to it. My value is in getting people to like me so that they'll tell me things. Doesn't mean that our lot in life is grand, it's just the way it is." Anduin frowns.

"Isn't there anything I can do?"

"The fact that you're concerned about a farmer and his missing cows speaks volumes."

Anduin's mouth twists bitterly and she turns to face the sun.

"I remember Prince Menethil." She says quietly.

This particular Prince clamps his jaw shut.


	14. Chapter 14

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Gimli shows up at her apartment.

Ellen watches from her window.

_I'll sit here until you're ready._ He'd said that once.

Gnawing on her lip and looking at the pile of missives on her rickety table, she picked one marked with the sigil of the Ebon Hold and started digging through her poison stash.

(yeah, Sunland's lady has been talking about babies – that's what the barmaid said.)

It was the natural progression of things.

Icecrown was far enough away, she supposed, that nobody would hear her scream. Crawling out of the window, she slipped out of the city to the docks.

_(she is not a monster)(she isn't crying)_


	15. Chapter 15

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

She hates Icecrown. It's a dark, cold place and everyone, everything is angry all the time.

She hates the Ebon Hold. It's cold and the stench of Plague still lingers. The ghouls chatter and follow her.

She hates the dead horses, with the vertebrae sticking up underneath the saddle.

She hates the do-gooders, the ones who have not seen.

She hates Proudmoore for her history.

She hates Arthas even more (_this is your fault_), but it is a sweet, sweet victory when she manages to get a knife in his eye before she goes flying.


	16. Chapter 16

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

It is her greatest failing:

When Hayley was born, it was her job to look after her. She was a brat of a kid, but she was _hers_. They played catch with the apples when mom and dad weren't looking, went fishing down at the creek and listened to Old Hubert tell stories.

In the end, it didn't matter.

In the end, Ellen is the one who killed her and used the last of her immolation elixir.

_(oh nether, the smell of the gangrene in her shoes, the whites of her eyes and the sickly-sweet rot smell that seeped from her skin – her sister was gone)_

* * *

Now, a shaman works above her, tusks curved up like a wicked smile. His hands curve along her chest, and the water-magic seeps into her flesh and her ribs snap back into place – the only thing keeping her leaping in the air and screaming is his grounding totem. A human priest in the Dawn's tabard is fiddling with her foot and the pain radiates up and down her leg as she coaxes all the little bones back into their proper places. A tiny goblin woman, another shaman by her dress is carefully folding her cheek just so and the needle glints in the weak light of Icecrown:

_Gimli, I wish you were here._

The orc slides the leather between her teeth to muffle her screams.

The pain is all-consuming.

(The soft give of her knife through his left eye still rockets through her fingers, still makes her toes curl.)

Beside her, the orc is holding her hand and mumbling about how the mage should have cast his fall-spell, to lessen the damage.

Ellen doesn't care.

_An eye for an eye._


	17. Chapter 17

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

"You're an idiot."

"_I know_." She hisses. Propping his head on his chin, Anduin looks at her fondly.

"You set them up because you thought you couldn't make him happy?"

"I kill people for a living."

"You just told me that he's willingly sat outside your door for hours."

"He's a light-damned paladin!"

"Faith isn't about attending services every week and attending confessional. Clearly you're over the moon about him, and you're his sun and stars."

"It's just – Gimli's always deserved better. I just want him to be happy."

"I think he may disagree with you on this."

Outside the cultists are screaming and babbling. The Prince looks at her.

"How much longer do you think we'll have to wait?"

"They'll simmer down around sunrise. Go have a nap."


	18. Chapter 18

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Rell comes to see her, with Sully in tow.

"Still breathin'," the dwarf says cheerfully, brandishing a bottle of plum brandy. "Always good to see." Rell nods and sets himself down on a spare chair.

"Feel better now?" he asks. Sully pulls out a set of shot glasses with glee.

"I stabbed the Lich King in the eye, Nightwind. _I AM GOD._"

"Good, so you'll marry that dwarf of yours then?"

"Will it shut you all up?"

"Will it manage to keep you from acting like a twelve year old girl?" he fires back. Sully passes the glasses around.

"You're not the first to do it lass," he says with a grin. "Look at him, he put his fine lady up in a cottage back in Darnassus." Rell flushes a brilliant purple, and knocks his shot back.

"Pot calling kettle black." Ellen mutters with a glare.

*/

"A dwarf would never do something so silly," Sully sighs happily. "My wife would set me on fire if I tried."


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Pilar raises her bow and sights her target.

_What do you mean he's missing?!_

Below, the warrior raises his shield, and Xavin begins to cast his enchantment.

_You just left him there? Cowards!_

The priest clutches her prayer book and casts her shield.

_I'm not leaving him there._

The arrow flies and hits the neurbian in the neck. His foreclaw falters and Ellen ambushes him from her perch above. Curling her feet in she pushes off and rolls out of the way as the warrior and Pilar's bear run him from the front and push him away from Gimli. A powerful ice lance hits the monster in the chest and he stumbles, screeching; something that should be a problem had they not already started destroying the nest.

Ellen always carries the ingredients for her immolation elixir; almost every problem can be solved by her simple rule: _burn it with fire_.

* * *

Dropping to her knees she rips off her gloves and starts tearing away at his restraints. One leg is broken, a part of his femur is push through the muscles of his thigh. His abdomen is a mass of strange bruising and his breathing looks odd, it whistles and wheezes. Curling up over his shoulder she sees the tell-tale sign of whip marks, the bright blue of his eyes are glassy in fever that battles to burn through his skin. The mage steps near and shouts an order to his elemental and kneels to assist.

Ellen as good as a priest when it comes to first aid, sometimes even better and there are lives to testify to her skills. Carefully she doses him up with potions of her own making: a healing draught, an analgesic, a mild sedative, a blood-replenisher. She forces the femur together again without wincing, resets his shoulder without pause and carefully stiches his forehead together as the mage casually throws the occasional spell or ice lance keep the beast unsteady.

*/

Nobody says anything when she throws up after the priest announces that he will make it.


	20. Chapter 20

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

Ellen is the one who sits in her stained leathers and holds his hand until he wakes. She manages to slip in his pipe, his favorite socks and his clan's tartan. Every morning she steeps his tea the way he likes it and lets it sit by the bedside.

Vera stops by once, eyes furrowed as she takes in the scene.

The rogue is asleep curled up around the paladin's still form; hand over his chest to monitor his breathing.

The warrior steps away.

Ellen is the one who talks with the healers, interrogates the Dawn's superiors – _again ._ She is the one who carefully trims his beard and helps change his bandages.

Vera is the one who visits the priest and pulls up her marriage license.

Vera is a warrior.

And this is a battle she cannot win, no matter how much she loves him.

* * *

She feels sorry for the rogue; truly, to be that scared of the world must be terrible.


	21. Chapter 21

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

It's a little awkward now.

(it speaks volumes about her that things were easier when he was married – much like her father she tends to make her life far more difficult than it has to be)

* * *

He catches up with her in Tol Barad, sitting next to the river with a pile of cinderbloom. The mist was coming up from the forest and creeping down over the steep embankment, muffling the chitter of the spiders and the veiling the fires from the settlement from view. The mail jingles louder than his plate but it is easier yet to move without the heavier armor.

"Looks like it'll be a clear night." She says quietly, carefully plucking the petals off a heartblossom.

He didn't come here to talk about the weather.

It's not like him, it's not – but despite the healer's attempt, the scar on her smooth cheek fills him with rage, _he should have been there_:

_He _pushes her down, _he _sets the record straight as her skin begins to flush underneath the heat of his scowl.

"It's always been you," he says raggedly as she whimpers. "Ever since I first saw you."

_She almost didn't make it._

"Silly girl," he whispers into her ear. "Don't you know how much I love you?"

_He almost didn't make it._

She arcs against him, and he can almost taste her heartbeat on his tongue.


	22. Chapter 22

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

She's always been a shy thing, even when she was little. She is sensitive like her mother, despite what she likes to make you believe with her father's smile and skin. It's something has always flabbergasted him, given what he knows she can do. So he's never quite figured out why she thinks that she can't make him happy when all she has to do is smile.

Gimli doesn't need a good position in the Argent Dawn, or an expensive apartment in Ironforge. He doesn't need the politics, no matter how much power it holds.

All he needs is Ellen's soft smile and the reassurance of her blade at his back should he need it. What he needs is faith.

Without Vera, he sells the apartment, resigns from the Dawn and moves his meager possessions into Ellen's small loft.

Every morning he surprises her with a flower and tea.

Eventually, he knows, she'll believe him.


	23. Chapter 23

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

She'd never really given it much consideration before.

He'd never said a thing when she'd been selling herself for coin and supplies on the road out of Lordaeron, dripping in the blood and sticky with the sweat of strange men. He'd actually liked Vera and had agreed that there was some sense in a politically-oriented marriage (he got a future and she got to sleep easy at night thinking he was happy). He'd never once snarled at Tobias when he'd accompanied her on a mission.

It looks like things have changed.

In front of her Gimli is pummeling some poor young knight for copping a feel and instead of flipping out a blade, she is standing there next to the Prince and clutching the satiny mage-weave in her palms. Around her the other guests are watching with awe.

Anduin nudges her with a sly smile.

"Maybe you were right," he says. "Maybe you are nothing but trouble."

"That was unnecessary." She murmurs later on as she wraps his hand.

"You are not an object." He says fiercely, and the burn of his unspoken rage flares behind his eyes.

_"A good general doesn't think of his men as collateral damage."_

_"I don't need to be babysat."_

_"I was in the area anyway."_

She smiles and presses a kiss to his cheek, admiring his bright flush.

"My hero."


	24. Chapter 24

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

They are far from the port, far from the shore – even the glimmer of the Cathedral is lost to them. The airship, pride of the Alliance fleet is clocking at double time to catch up with the missing ship. In their cabin the hum of the engines thrums through the air and echoes in her bones. In their chest she had packed her poisons and her potions, his skinning knife sharpening stone. Bandages and spare socks, his favorite tea and a small package of their toiletries, her hair ties and his pipe. When he returns to their room, clad only in his civilian gear – the polished plate is hung up, hers stowed away in the trunk, and it is with a cherry flush to his cheeks and a grin that comes from drinking shots with Xavin.

"What happened?" she asks as she climbs out of her leggings. Gimli's hands sculpt the curve of her hip and slip up to caress her ribs. He lets out a throaty chuckle as she melts like water in his hands.

"Man talk." He whispers next to her ear and she rolls her neck to oblige.

* * *

Later, after he is spent and she is heavy-lidded in the afterglow, he wraps his arm around her and settles over her abdomen.

Xavin had brought up children, family.

Gimli understood the loss and the want.

_(they'd have her smile, her soft hair…)_


	25. Chapter 25

_Author's note: I don't own the content before you – this is an exercise in creativity. Please mind the rating, there are scenes of death, sex and swearing._

_Summary: so a rogue walks into a bar…/snippets of a young woman's life_

* * *

She is challenged to a race not soon after they leave Stormwind. The other rogue is quick on her feet, her companions wear toothy smiles. It is a beautiful day, clear and sunny, so Ellen agrees.

It's a grueling run, as it was going to be, and even with her moderate pace as she makes the laps around the airship the Gilnean woman outpaces her. Ellen's never liked running, always hated it – running was something her sister did, with her fair baby hair trailing like stardust through the wheat fields and the orchards. Running reminds her of home and the fire and the smell of rotting flesh. As a survivor of the purges, of the plague, Whispers does feel the burn in her throat and her spine when she sees the Gilnean tabard, a fury that sharpens her teeth and howls : _it is not fair, where were they when we were burning, when our families were rotting at the dinner table, when towns closed their doors to us out of fear?_

It is something that causes her to swear curses at them in the old tongue at dinner, quickly ending the joke about the Lich King and Lady Proudmoore and Thrall.

They got to hide.

She will never forgive them for that.


End file.
